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A firewall question

My problem is that recently I have been receiving complaints from friends that when they send me email it is being returned to them as undeliverable. These are all people who email me regularly, have me as a contact, so the address is correct. It is not a consistent problem, sometimes they can email me, sometimes they can't, and most of them ARE able to reply directly to an email I have sent them and there is no problem. One person who emails me several times a day was unable to send an e-card for my husbands birthday....but regular email gets through just fine....

My question is----is this problem my firewall perhaps, or should I call my ISP and complain about the service? I just wanted to ask here before I call them and look like an idiot complaining about something that is my fault.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

To tell you the truth, I can't remember whether it started before or after I installed Tiny...seems like there was one who had a problem before, but I was running Zone Alarm then, I just uninstalled it, and installed Tiny...There was one person who told me she couldn't send email...but I sort of assumed it was her fault, as she is not someone who regularly emails me, I figured she had typed the address wrong. I think that was before I installed Tiny, but I don't remember definitely.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

But we still need to know if you host your email server..... If you don't host your own server, the firewall should have NO effect on whether an email gets recieved or not. Its the ppl who host the mail servers problem. Contact them and tell them your problem and maby they can fix it.
Just My Two Cents,

Debwalin,
When you receive e-mails the e-mail itself is not targetted at you computer, unless you host the server like jehnx said, which would be HIGHLY unlikely. The e-mail that you receive is kept at a remote location that it was delievered to. It is stored there, sent from there, and received there. Everytime you get an e-mail it is just sent to, {let's say hotmail} and it sits on their computer waiting for the correct authorization from you to do whatever you want with it. {See this has nothing to do with you computer security, firewall ect.} And when you access that e-mail you just read it from that remote server. If someone cannot send you e-mail it is because that remote server is not working or is shut down temporarily or permanently. If your e-mail adress is joesomebody@MYISP.net then the problem IS with your ISP, and you should call them up and report the bug or error. But if your e-mail adress is joesomebody@HOTMAIL.com then you should e-mail the webmaster to report the error or bug, and their e-mail adress will always be webmaster@HOTMAIL.com.

Hey, it could also be a storage prob... like explained by The3ntropy your e-mail is kept by the service you use for the e-mail, like webmail (e.g. : hotmail, yahoo,...) or a mail service from your ISP.
Check your amount of messages in your mailbox.... perhaps you are exceeding the limit, for instance your junk mail folder, read folder or trash folder could be full of messages.... blocking new ones to recieve. Most mail services use a soft and a hard limit. For instance if the soft limit is 16 MB and the hard limit is 20 MB, you will be able to store 16MB on long term and 20MB short term. Everything above 16 MB is auto deleted after a certain time period starting with the junk and trash folders. To be able to recieve mail when your inbox is full (16MB), the hard 20MB limit is used. However when you exceed that too, you will not be able to recieve more mail... this could explain why ppl cannot send mail to you. You can ask your contacts about the returned messages, what did they say? read the headers of those returned mails.